Chitosan decorated zirconium metal-organic framework for collaborative adsorption and photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue and methyl orange

A type of crystalline porous material known as zirconium metal-organic frameworks (UiO-66) is made up of organic carboxylate ligands and inorganic zirconium clusters. The UiO-66 has consistent pore sizes, large porosities, exceptional adsorption capabilities, and particular functional groups for increasing dye adsorption. This study reports the synthesis of Zirconium metal-organic framework (UiO-66) and chitosan composite of zirconium metal−organic framework (CS/UiO-66) for potential adsorption of methyl orange (MO) and methylene blue (MB) dyes from the aqueous media and additional, excellent photodegradation capability of the synthesized material towards selected dyes. The synthesized materials were successfully characterized for structural, morphological, surface and thermogravimetrical analysis. The exclusion of dyes onto the CS/UiO-66 followed the trend MB (2321 mg/g) > MO (900 mg/g) respectively. The maximum sorption and degradation capacity of the CS/UiO-66 were increased by 5–10 times after its composite with chitosan (CS) and the affinity of the dyes towards the different adsorbents followed the sequence CS/UiO-66 > UiO-66 > CS which is parallel to their surface properties. The negative values of the entropy i.e., − 382 for MB and − 249 for MO affirmed the controlled versatility of the MO, and MB onto CS/UiO-66 whereas the isosteric heat of adsorption i.e., − 201 kJ/mol for MB and − 153 kJ/mol for MO illustrated the exothermicity of the adsorption process. The intraparticle diffusion and Richenberge kinetic models demonstrated that pore diffusion dominates in the adsorption of MB while film diffusion has a greater involvement in the MO adsorption of CS/UiO-66. Moreover, the photocatalytic degradation study indicated that the pH and H2O2 play a significant part in the deprivation of dyes. While GC-MS analysis revealed that the photocatalytic degradation of MB resulted in the formation of six TPs. The toxicity of these TPs of MB was evaluated by ECOSAR program and the results showed that the TPs were less toxic than the parent MB molecule.